


BatWatch Online

by Me_aGlorifiedPigeon



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: BatWatch AU, Crack Treated Seriously, Gen, Gotham City - Freeform, civilian fic, i guess, i guess?, if i write some more chapters tim drake gets a cameo, people like to watch for batman, technically a crack fic, the media?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2019-06-12 03:25:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15330684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Me_aGlorifiedPigeon/pseuds/Me_aGlorifiedPigeon
Summary: Gotham’s BatWatch. Your top source for full Batman coverage!What is BatWatch? BatWatch started as a pastime between friends on a Gotham rooftop! Over three years, it developed into a city wide obsession with keeping an eye out for Batman wherever he might be. Now it’s a website so that people all over the world can read up on the Dark Knight of Gotham! Sign up now to join our BatWatch community and send in articles for our editors to okay and publish, or just join our other users in our forum to talk about what you’ve seen the Bat do!





	BatWatch Online

**Author's Note:**

> Basically, some stories have Gothamites be so numb to all their city's crime, that I don't see why they don't just hang out on their rooftops or in their fire escapes, trying to catch glimpses of Batman.

Lana Nazario liked the roof. Gotham’s sky was always cloudy and grey, so there weren’t any stars, but the city lights were pretty enough. The sunsets always looked more red than orange. The sunrise was kinda pretty too. Lana was really glad the landlord gave people keys to the roof. A bit of a risk, in a city like Gotham, but nice. It was quiet up here, even with the distant sirens, and the flashing lights. It was nice here.

It was also the best place to look for Batman. He’d been around for awhile, according to Geo, Lana’s neighbor. Geo said that his ex boyfriend had gone to prison because the Batman busted his gang. Geo said that the Batman made him realize his boyfriend wasn’t a good guy. A normal love story, really, in Gotham. A regular kid falls in love with a kid who’s gotten tangled up in some shady business, and usually it’s too late for either of them. Except Geo wasn’t a Gothamite. He was from Metropolis, with their shining new superhero, the epitome of goodness. Geo couldn’t look past the flaws. Gothamites knew that sometimes things got desperate. Geo didn't get it yet.

But enough of that. It wasn’t Geo’s obsession with morals that made Lana look for the Batman. Not many people knew of him yet, but he was a good man. Lana had been on her way home from work when she’d been mugged, and Batman saved her wallet, and her life if the mugger really had been ready to blow a bullet through her skull. She’d asked who he was, he’d answered “Batman” and Lana had been hungry for more knowledge ever since. So she watched for him. Every night, she camped on the roof with a pair of binoculars and waited.

“What do you even do up here all night long?”

Lana jumped, turning around to see Steven from three doors down, hugging himself in the cool night air. She blinked, then glanced at her binoculars. “I’m looking for Batman. You heard of him?”

“Aren’t the cops insisting that he’s fake?” Steven asked, coming to sit next to her on the ledge, his legs hanging down beside hers. He looked a bit dizzy for a moment, as he looked down the fifteen stories of their building.

“All the more reason to think he’s out there,” Lana shrugged. “Besides, he saved me.”

“Did he, really?” Steven asked.

“Yeah, mugging.”

“Wow. Glad you’re okay, then,” Steven huffed a breath. He sat beside her in silence for a long moment. Then, he said, “So you do this every night, huh?”

“Yeah,” Lana nodded. “Working nights has its perks. I get home at eleven and can’t sleep, so this is easy.”

“Wow,” Steven snorted. “No wonder you get the mail at noon.”

Lana frowned, looking at him suspiciously. “How do you know that?”

“I live three doors down from you,” Steven reminded. “With customers coming and going, I need to know what the whole floor is up to.”

Lana pondered this for a moment, trying to remember what she’d observed of Steven’s apartment. “You’re a babysitter, right?”

“Yeah, that’s me,” Steven smiled. Lana’s stomach gurgled in the silence that followed. Steven laughed as she blushed and ducked her head, embarrassed by the sound. “Hungry?”

“I could go for a meal,” Lana said diplomatically.

After that night, a pattern started. Lana would run over to Steven’s with a pair of binoculars, he’d wave a platter of snacks he’d already made, and they’d hang out on the rooftops. And slowly, others began to join them. Saki from the fifth floor brought her camera just in case, CC brought his cards for the long stretches when they didn’t see the bat, Dawson and her therapy dog Kerberos even joined in the group. Geo started calling them the Rooftop BatWatch.

They talked about Batman, about how the police trash talked him even though he was out there saving lives, they talked about corruption in the law in this damned city, they talked about how Batman might be insane, but at least someone was stepping up. They were proud to call themselves the BatWatch. Then Saki came back from her job at the print shop with T-shirt’s, and BatWatch they were.

Then the Joker showed up not even a year later. Dawson saw him first, saw him kill three people. She missed dying by a hair, because Batman showed up. The police questioned her, but she was fifteen. Fifteen, just watched three people die, and having a violent panic attack in the back of an ambulance. It was three sessions of BatWatch before Dawson came back, arms covered in bandages and face pale, but Kerberos as fiercely loyal and present as ever.

With the appearance of the Joker came more frequent Batman sightings. Unfortunately it also meant that Gotham had gotten more dangerous. Lana’s neighbor Geo moved back to Metropolis, and was quickly replaced with a young woman named Marah, who had been looking for a more affordable rent. Marah quickly joined their BatWatch group, adding to Steven’s spread with her own delicious baked goods.

After Joker, loads of dramatic freaks began to pop up all over Gotham. The crazies had always been there- now they were just being obvious and dramatic about it. BatWatch was beginning to expand all over Gotham. Small groups of people waiting for Batman to appear outside their windows, or even stalking the alleys looking for him.

And after three years of BatWatch expanding and having conventions in the City Hall every three months (thank you, Dawson, for your rich uncle), finally the question was brought up. Dawson, actually, was the one to bring it up. She’d been studying computer engineering in her senior year, and was trying to come up with an idea for her website building assignment.

“Hey, why don’t we bring BatWatch to the internet? I mean, then we can make the convention a yearly thing. And we can start fundraising for the cons there, too,” Dawson suggested, her fingers buried in Kerberos’s fur as she kept her gaze on the skyline.

“You think we should?” Lana asked.

“Well, there’s heroes all across the continuous states now, and people still don’t know much about Batman. People outside of Gotham don’t know if he exists or what,” Steven commented.

“Yeah, and we know plenty about ol’ Bats! Like how he doesn’t actually fly under his own power,” Saki grinned.

“Or how he always stops to make sure kids are okay,” Marah added.

“Or that he works to not lethally wound anyone,” CC pointed out.

“See? All good things that we should share with the world!” Dawson decided with a big smile. “It’d be like a Batman fan page, or something!”

“No way,” Lana snorted, shaking her head. “If we’re doing BatWatch Online, it’s got to be factual reports. I’m not starting a Batman fanfiction website.”

“Ew, no! I don’t want to see that,” Dawson grimaced. “How about reports and a forum? So people can chat about sightings and theories? We’d have the right to delete anything that we don’t approve of.”

Lana was surprised to see the way the other BatWatch members looked to her for the final say, after they all agreed. It hit her in that moment- Lana had founded BatWatch. BatWatch was hers. She smiled. “Yeah. What’s the address?”

Dawson grinned. “Well, how about: gothambatwatch.com?”

* * *

 

 **Gotham’s BatWatch** - _Your top source for full Batman coverage!_

What is BatWatch? BatWatch started as a pastime between friends on a Gotham rooftop! Over three years, it developed into a city wide obsession with keeping an eye out for Batman wherever he might be. Now it’s a website so that people all over the world can read up on the Dark Knight of Gotham!  Sign up now to join our BatWatch community and send in articles for our editors to okay and publish, or just join our other users in our forum to talk about what you’ve seen the Bat do!

Submit an Article! 

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